Does My Blog Look Good in This | May 2015 Edition – DMBLGiT

I am super excited and privileged to be hosting this month’s DMBLGiT – May 2015 edition. It is special because when I started blogging 4 years ago, it was my dream to have the coveted DMBLGiT Badge on my blog.

To all those readers who may not know what Does My Blog Look Good in This is all about, a small recap – DMBLGiT is community run food photography contest that was established way back in 2005. Yes a decade old!!! It is a contest which is hosted by different food blogger each month and is judged by food bloggers or people who specialise in food photography.

Bidding Adieu to Strawberry Season | Photostory

When I moved from wordpress.com to a self hosted blog with a makeover in 2013, I felt I was ready to if not win but at least to host the contest. Upon contacting Andrew, got to know that ‘the contest has run its course’ with hardly anyone coming forward to handle the baton to keep it alive. I still have emails exchanged between Andrew and me where I am begging him to let me host for all months till he gets other hosts.

I was desperate but for a GOOD thing. DMBLGiT encouraged newbie like me to participate, it provided an open platform to see good work and get judged on tangible criteria.

It was a definite good thing.

Incognito Restaurant at Baner| A Review

And when Neel posted on Learn Food Photography that DMBLGiT is coming back, I was jumping with delight right in front of my PC. It felt right to have one of the oldest and best Photography contest back. It was a foregone conclusion that this time I would not loose a beat to host this contest on LiG.

It is a great thing that Learn Food Photography has now taken on the responsibility to carry on the contest and give it a new lease.

Mahabaleshwar Photo Blog – Part 3 | Travel Story

I am happy to be today inviting all you lovely people out there who put in so much of effort into composing, styling and shooting food images to come forward and send in your entries for the May edition.

It is a simple contest where you submit your own food related photo and the same is scored for 3 categories – edibility, aesthetics and originality, by a chosen panel of judges. The scores are compiled by the host (me) to come up with the winning entries.

Mahabaleshwar Photo Blog – Part 3 | Travel Story

It is time to share the esteemed judges with you whose work I admire tremendously and very thrilled to have them on board.

We have talented and renowned Food Stylist, Ronnie D. Charlton who is based in Oklahoma and is a graduate from The Culinary Institute of America. He is a very good mentor and open to sharing his experiences and views. His inputs add value to a person. I am a huge fan of his work and deeply honoured to have him on the panel.

Second on the panel is Jasmine Waheed. Her creativity is just amazing. Diptychs and creating stories with them is one of her strengths. She is a BA Hons in Photography from London College of Printing. She brings a freshness and different perspective with each image. Her images speak, they make you think out of the box.

Last but not the least is Asha Shivkumar of Food Fashion Party. I connected with Asha on Instagram. I love her work. It is simple, rustic and everytime she posts an image, I want to reach out and grab a bite off the screen. Her recipes are also easy to make. I want to go out there and try each one of them.

The specific things the judges will be looking for are as follows:

Aesthetics: composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.

Edibility: “does the photo make us want to dive in and eat the food?”

Originality: the photograph that catches our attention and makes us want to say “wow!”, displaying something we might not have seen before.

Overall Winner: top overall scores in all three categories combined.

There are three overall winners for photographs with the highest point totals in all three categories combined, and one winner in each of the three individual categories. So… ready to participate? To participate simply email me your best photograph you took in April ’15 using the submission instructions below.

Spinach Cream Pasta

How to Participate – Photo Submission Requirements:

Send your photos as an attachment to dmblgit[at]learnfoodphotography[dot]com and alika279[at]gmail[dot]com with Subject “DMBLGiT May 2015″. It is critical that subject of the email matched exactly to what’s mentioned above. You will receive an email confirmation of submission. If you don’t receive any email, please contact alika279[at]gmail[dot]com

Include this information in your photo submission:

Your full name:

Your blog name and URL

Title of your photograph

URL to blogpost where submitted photo is posted

Agreement from you agreeing to let us display your photo on host website, learnfoodphotography.com and DMBLGiT contest gallery. We won’t use your photo for any other purpose outside DMBLGiT.

Important: File format needs to be jpeg format and longest size should be no longer than 500 pixels. This means for horizontal or landscape format max 500 px width and for vertical or portrait format max 500 px height.

Photo must not have any text.

General DMBLGiT Contest Rules:

Only one entry per person. One photograph. No diptychs

This photo should be taken and posted in the month of April 2015

This goes without saying but I will say it anyway – you must have taken this photograph and should have copyrights to this photo.

Entries must be received by May 20th at midnight I.S.T (Indian Standard Time) using all requirements described in the photo requirements section.

You can also refer here for any further clarification – Participant Information and FAQs